Essential advice on making good use of meta tags
Meta Tags are one of the most well known parts of the search engine optimisation mix and probably one of the most misunderstood and misused elements. Meta Tags have been around almost since the dawn of search engines themselves and were once a critical part in the search engine optimisation process. However, several years ago, due to the excessive use of black hat techniques, search engines changed their algorithms to place less emphasis on them. This is probably where a lot of the misunderstanding about meta tags stems from. Even today, I come across website owners, company directors or marketing managers who are adamant that the recipe for success is to simply stuff every keyword under the sun into those two lines of code at the top of your page.
What are Meta Tags though?
Quite simply put Meta Tags are several lines of code in the head section of your html web page. There are many different type of meta tags that can be used but the main three are the title tag, description tag and keyword tag. Some people would argue that the robots tag is also worth using but I’m not convinced about this.
How important are Meta Tags in the optimisation of a website?
It’s also widely debated as to how important each of these three meta tags are in the optimisation of a website. Do the search engines still use them? If so, how much heed to they take of them? If not, why bother with them in the first place? I believe these three tags are used to varying degrees by the main search engines and for that reason alone I feel it’s important at the beginning of a project to analyse a page, identify the keyword phrases which that page will target and then add the meta tags to that page, applying your chosen keywords in the process. It’s good to get into the habit of using meta tags correctly on every page but even if meta tags only play a minor role in the make up of a websites optimisation it certainly doesn’t hurt to use them.
How to make good use of your meta tags
Title Tag - The title tag is by far the most important meta tag in a web page. The title tag is the line of text that appears in your browsers frame. It’s also the title that’s returned in the search listings and the link which a web user will click on to go to your website. For this reason every title on every page of your website should be unique to that page. It should contain your main keyword phrase preferably early on in the title closely followed by any other secondary keywords if possible. It should also be short, well written and descriptive as this is the text that will hopefully capture a users attention and could be the beginning of a successful sales lead.
Description - The description tag, like all other meta tags, appears below the title tag in the head section of the web page. The purpose of the description is to give a brief overview of the theme or content of that particular web page. Like the page title, the description should be unique to that particular page and be a short, well written description which includes several of your chosen keywords. As the description tag is generally the short piece of copy listed below your title link in the search engine listing it is essential that it is a clear and concise description of what your web page is about.
Keywords - The keywords meta tag has a lesser importance these days. Whether a search engine ignores the contents of the meta tag or not I feel it is good to use it for the sole purpose of helping you to focus on the main keyword phrases that that particular web page is to be optimised for. I try to keep the number of keywords I use per page to a minimum, about 3-4 long tail keyword phrases. Anymore and I feel you may run the risk of diluting the focus of the web page.
Robots - This meta tag is a very handy tool in a webmasters battle against duplicate content. You can pass two parameters to it which tells a search engine whether to index the page or not and whether to follow the links on the page or not.
Is there a golden rule to using meta tags?
One of the main golden rules to remember when using meta tags, as with all other aspects of a websites search engine optimisation, is not to stuff your pages with to many keywords. Choose them carefully and apply them carefully. Always use your main ones in your title tag and in your description tag. Supported by some well written content you’ll be on your way to a well optimised website.
Tags: meta, optimisation, seo, tags